Join the Battle for Mental Health Parity

With less than a year left of Obama’s presidency, the federal government is beginning to show some determination to implement parity requirements of the Affordable Health Care Act. On June 10, HHS’s head Sylvia Burwell will host a listening session to learn about problems experienced by practitioners and patients.

You can provide valuable feedback about violations, state enforcement, and support needed for effective implementation. Click here for an opportunity to sent an email to the National Council for Behavioral Health about your experiences. The Council will use the information to develop talking points. Click here to send your comments directly to the President’s Task Force in charge of implementing parity.

Click here for an excellent article by Lloyd Sederer, M.D.,chief medical officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health, offering stories about the human impact when parity is not enforced and examples of how insurance companies evade the law.

Sederer argues for the importance of federal action writing, “Individuals are too overwhelmed and outgunned by insurers to solve the problem, as are doctors. State insurance agencies are generally very underresourced…legal remedies…are generally too small to attract plaintiff’s attorneys…”

Click here for “Know Your Rights,” a brochure available from SAMHSA that offers simple explanations of the law, common problems and methods of appeal.